Source
r/GlobalOffensive•
AddictedPro

BETA Program - Community-Managed Project to Help the Developers Improve the Game.

Hello! Some of you may know me as the creator/founder of the top rated CS:GO Steam guide of all time "From Silver To Eagle: Improving Your Game" or the Valentine's Day 24-Hour CS:GO subreddit AMA, but today I present you guys with a project I have been working on and have been planning for many months and hope to turn into reality.

Purpose: Provide the developers with data and research of weapon, movement, and player values that contribute to a more balanced, competitive, and skill-based game.

Goals: Create a promod, with changed values, and let the community support it by playing it on various 64tick and 128tick servers. As they play, data will be collected to determine the effectiveness of the changes. This data will then be sent to the developers for further analysis.

The values of the changes is still to be determined, but a list of issues to address would be:

  • Hitbox adjustment and communication between client and server.

  • Weapon balancing to provide more skill-based gameplay and less randomness (Damage, spread, accuracy).

  • Map balancing (Also re-considering flow of gameplay).

  • Bringing back previous weapons like the MP5 and Ballistic Shield to bring forward more tactics and strategies. EDIT: Ballistic Shield only for casual promod servers. ;)

My personal goal is to create a small and productive team with experience in the field of map editing, mod editing, programming, as well as having knowledge around the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive SDK. Server admins will be in constant watch of hackers, griefers, exploiters, as well as players needing support.

This is going to be a community-managed project. Our goals lie within helping the game we love reach new heights, not monetary gain or popularity.

Hope to have your support in fulfilling the goals above. -AddictedPro

Also, many thanks to u/sc2snow for editing the post.

EDIT: I created a steam group where I will announce updates in the project as well as provide a home where the community can talk to the team. So if you want to stay up-to-date, you can join the group at http://steamcommunity.com/groups/betaprogram

Posted Apr 18, 2015, 10:52 PM UTC · edited

8168
CenomXCloud9 G2A Fan•

Valve enjoy community doing their work, I guess it might succed.

15
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Being a developer is hard work. I have been studying the code for hours upon hours, it is very sophisticated but a little unorganized. The point of the project is to help ease the updating progress for the developers. I don't really want them to give credit to use the data or have to thank us, the reward will be in the community enjoying the game to a more balanced level. :) Where skill and hard work is rewarded. :)

5
TimberdwarfMaster Guardian I•

I have been studying the code for hours upon hours

Sorry if I'm missing something there, but are you talking about CS:GO source code? How exactly did you gain access to it?

2
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

The csgo config files that are downloaded when you install csgo, there are weapon datas, map datas, viewmodels, I have also played around with the SDK. Looked at previous CS mods and how they work and operate. I don't think we have access to the source code itself. :)

1
Fira_WolfDistinguished Master Guardian•

Probably just https://github.com/SteamDatabase/SteamTracking/blob/master/ItemSchema/CounterStrikeGlobalOffensive.json

-1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

We have been also taking a look at this and analyzing it, we have gained an immense amount of information that we hope to manipulate in the promod. :)

1
SOhammySupreme Master First Class•

I joined up. I've been active in a lot of promod development groups going back to CoD 4 as far as alpha and beta testing. Also I'd be more than happy to assist as an on-call admin to help maintain the cheating scene and overall support.

7
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Thank you so much! If you can send me a personal message with your steam account, I can contact you with further details. :)

5
SOhammySupreme Master First Class•

Done and done ^^

3
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Thank you and thank you! haha :)

3
DarK-ForcELegendary Eagle Master•

This is a great idea, we really need some pros to join this group to put weight behind it.

I'm a bit hesitant towards the return of the shield it would have to be either breakable or have the feet, legs exposed

3
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

I'm glad you liked the idea! I too would love for pro feedback to be considered. Hopefully sharing this and getting attention would help.

Obviously Hidden Path and VALVe are aiming to make the game more entertaining by changing it. The possibilities are there and I'm taking them into consideration; even as low of a chance of it to actually be implemented into the promod. Anything is possible, and balance would be the ultimate goal of the project. :)

2
SoupUserDistinguished Master Guardian•

How do you plan on adding more weapons? Can't make client-side mods; unless you plan on making some launcher that hooks into the game... is there something I'm missing here?

3
ProkadeVox Eminor Fan•

I'm interested in seeing that too. CSGO modding is very limited so I can't see how they could make the changes they hope to do inside of CSGO.

1
SoupUserDistinguished Master Guardian•

Yeah, while I'd love everything the post is talking about... it seems quite ambitious. From my (limited) knowledge it's entirely possible, but it'd be a huge pain in the ass to reverse engineer CS:GO like that unless they were to have the co-operation of cheat coders.

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AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

We will endure the pain-in-the-ass so that you don't have to. :) We want to create a product that the community and the team would love to play and enjoy for free. :D We have a ton of plans ready to be made and worked with. :)

2
ProkadeVox Eminor Fan•

I'll be a pain in your ass tonight bby

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

We have the brains, and the power of coding. We are all excited and we only wish to succeed, we have many different course of actions that we are going to try out and experiment with to provide a way for the community to play a balanced game. :)

2
ProkadeVox Eminor Fan•

Well I'm really, really excited to see where this goes. I was around when the CoD4 Promod Alpha and Beta were released and I remember how great it was to see it evolve into something that eventually became the standard for every tournament being played. I know nothing about coding but if there's anything I can do to help out please let me know because I'd love to. Also, I think it would be really cool if you could post more updates to the sub about what's going on within the team. I've already the group and I'll be following every post!

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AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

I'm glad to see you as excited as we are about the team's goals. Coding is not necessary! Helping can be done in many ways: spreading the word, testing the servers or even playing with your friends on the mod once it is out. :)

We are hopefully creating a website to help with the updates. We have planned on creating a "Weekly Dev Blog" which would consist of weekly updates on what each person on the team is working on and what our plans for the week would be. We might not spam the sub every week with the updates, but at least we will post our most important updates on here as well as link them in the group. :)

We also have planned "Dev Talk Streams" where the team would get together and talk about what were planning on a stream where the community and the chat can join in and influence our decision-making by providing ideas and opinions live with small delay. We will notify the group, the website members using a newsletter, and may post an announcement in this sub.

We hope to inform everyone that wants to be informed as well as bring interest into the team and our intentions, but we don't want to overpower or spam the sub with too many updates. We don't want to cast a shadow on all the entertaining and informative content that make up this wonderful subreddit. :D

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AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Currently, our main focus is balancing the game. Afterwards, we can have fun and find a way to implement new weapons. :) We are still talking and planning on seeing how we are going to implement new weapons, but the team is excited and we are all working on creating a promod that we, as well as the community, would love to see and play.

1
SoupUserDistinguished Master Guardian•

I can do light coding, but I doubt you want that... otherwise I know how to use hammer pretty well (...but haven't made a full map) ... very useful skills if you want them ^^^/s^^m^a^y^b^e

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AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

You don't have to necessarily know coding or design to be able to help. You can help in many other ways! You can share this post, spread the word, or even join the group and wait for the mod to come out so that you can your friends can experience it and provide feedback. :) If you do want to help more in the behind-the-scenes, we'll gladly take you on board. ^^

1
SoupUserDistinguished Master Guardian•

Well I am willing to help behind the scenes where/if I can.

1
KillerKittyKhajiitVox Eminor Fan•

THERE WAS A BALASTIC SHIELD? SINCE WHEN? Also I don't think it would be a good idea, I mean get a coulple of friends to buy that on t-sid, plant the bomb and camp on the bomb so ct's can't defuse

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AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Haha yeah, it is all over the code of the game, from previous counter-strikes. I don't plan on truly putting it in unless I think it would provide something good to the game. The possibility is there, and I am just looking at all the options, no matter how small and unrealistic they are. :)

4
KIKOMKTitan Fan•

Put it on t side and instead of armor rek9 rush we will see shield rec9 rush. All maps will turn t sided

2
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

lmao can you imagine that? Nuke with 5 T's with shields rushing in to A in Testudo formation haha.

3
KIKOMKTitan Fan•

Please make it happen, at least for a couple of days to celebrate the release, and then on special occasions like anniversaries.

1
KillerKittyKhajiitVox Eminor Fan•

I think it would be a good idea to send it out to some people like when it is in beta, like send it to youtubers and bored people to see how much they can brake it :)

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

We plan on making this promod a big part of the community like ESEA or CEVO, without the hassle of paying for anything. Our plans right now is to create a product that we, the team, would enjoy to play and work on. After that, we are thinking about implementing a lot of ideas like a ranked system, tournament hosting, etc. We plan to take full control of the resources at hand and also create DEV TALK streams where the team sits down and talks about the weekly plans and improvements to the game with the chat and the community having full-say on what we are doing and thinking. :) I am friends with a couple of Youtubers like Doom49, CORE Haven, and many others, and I'm sure they would also love to see our product come to reality. :)

1
KillerKittyKhajiitVox Eminor Fan•

So would I, the thing I need to know is, how intrusive will the anti-cheat (if you plan to have one) will be, also would it be possible to do the ranking system similar to what CSGO does, but, ya know, better?

P.S. I will keep spewing ideas that will probably never make it into the final thing, if you want me to stop then I will stop.

1
Nathan9912Legendary Eagle•

ayy haha I'm uber n00b, commented on your profile a couple weeks ago about going from Silver 1 to DMG, nice seeing you around here :)

I would like the idea of a Beta program, too many changes being made that the community ends up hating. It'd be best to see them just not show up in the first place. cough AWP movement cough

Looking forward to seeing where this goes, I joined the Steam group :)

2
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Hey man! :D lol well that's what we are hoping to do, help the developers create a better game. :) Thanks for supporting and joining! :)

1
GravetyLegendary Eagle Master•

Sounds like a good idea, I cringed at the Ballistics Shield re-appearance, but then i thought, 5 man shield rush? Silver ELO here I come!

2
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

We have talked about making a reappearance of the shield ONLY after the game is first fixed and balanced in the promod. Our beggining purpose is to create a balanced game. Afterwards, we might work on including the shield, but if it proves too overpowered, we can just add it to a fun casual server for nostalgia effect. :) We will see. :D

1
GravetyLegendary Eagle Master•

hahah okay best of luck, ill be sure to jump into the steam group to give a helping hand where i can.

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Thank you! I appreciate the comment and support. :)

1
SC2SnowDistinguished Master Guardian•

I'm noticing a lot of shield-hate in this thread, and I think it's taking a bit of focus away from the main idea we're trying to push here, so I'm going to try to clear things up.

We're looking at two big, separate ideas here - Balancing the current game, which is our biggest goal and the one we're going for first, and changing the game in big ways. This means tweaking the stats of weapons such as the Tech 9 and re-balancing SMGs to make the early game less centered around run-and-gun, and trying to bring the game closer to its roots. It's about identifying what is balanced and well-designed and finding a happy middle-ground.

Adding things like the ballistic shield, MP5, and doing overhauls on weapons and maps is a much more long-term goal. That portion is about making the game fun and creating opportunities for more strategic options. We have some ideas in regards to the ballistic shield to make it balanced, but if it is balanced, would it be fun? We're going to tweak things like this seperately on custom maps that aren't related to the balancing portion of it. It's entirely possible the shield will be tweaked for 6 months and end up being scrapped because there isn't a middle-ground between being tactically useful, fun, and balanced. It'll be interesting to try, though, and I think it adds a lot of options that didn't exist before.

The plan is to have servers up relatively soon that will feature the re-balanced weapons, with less emphasis on run-and-gun and more emphasis on smart buys and good play, the way CS has traditionally been. Later, when we've got the assets and are satisfied with how the balance project is going, we're going to add separate servers that are going to feature map changes, weapon-retooling (i.e. making the game less M4 vs AK vs AWP), legacy weapons like the MP5, Shield, and possibly NVG. Think of it as our take on CS and what we think would be interesting, while still balanced. Everything is still fluid at this point, but the hope is to make the primary game more balanced, help VALVe identify what works and what doesn't, and use the knowledge we gain from the lower-burden balancing to help us balance things that are entirely new (or very, very old).

I hope this clears things up!

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AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

+1 my friend. Thanks for commenting. :)

2
Unkown_Name•

I read your Steam guide, it was great, I hope this new project turns into reality.

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

I will work my best to make it so! Thanks for the feedback and support! :D

2
Eagle_99Flipsid3 Tactics Fan•

How can i personally contribute to this? Make maps and map changes and test them? Or are you setting up a group?

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AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

I am going to set a group, will talk to people who are willing to volunteer and help out. You can also help once the PROMOD is out by playing it and just having fun testing the changes with friends or solo queue-ing. :) Up to you. :D

If you do want to want to contribute with the coding and be part of the team, I would suggest you send me a message so that we can arrange. :) The team will get together and talk changes which will then be transferred to the public so that they can test them out in 5v5 competitive servers.

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Eagle_99Flipsid3 Tactics Fan•

I'm no coder haha, i am a designer though mainly so i could always help in that department!

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Haha well any help would be greatly appreciated! :) You can message me your steam and I will contact you with further details. :)

1
ohhFoNiX3DMax Fan•

Joined the group, looks interesting

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Thank you for joining! :) Hopefully I can get a team together and launch the promod soon so that you and the community can enjoy helping out by just having fun and playing csgo. :D

1
Senior_MoretzsohnDistinguished Master Guardian•

I have beta-tested a fuck load of servers, why not a game too? I'm down for it.

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Haha we will be publishing server info for all the server including changes on the Steam group. Once they're up, you will be able to join and help us test the game. :) Thanks for the support! :D

2
S4int_Adri4nMaster Guardian Elite•

Hell ya I want my ballistic shield back

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Lol it would be pretty cool to get some legacy weapons and equipment for fun. :)

1
bluemuppetman•

So are we saying volvo don't use their current data correctly? I mean, they seem to have data on all current values. They make changes based on that data, whether people like it or not, but with the idea that it can 'balance' their game or make changes to make the game how they want it. This isn't always how their players want it (good or bad).

So this is an idea to collect data outside of that set with the interest of providing volvo with new data that would hopefully influence their decisions made in the future, rather than solely rely on their own data to make those choices?

Just curious, not against it, so hope you don't take these questions the wrong way.

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Of course not!

We too don't mean to say that VALVe isn't using their data correctly, but when comparing the game to other competitive-based games, like starcraft, we noticed that a fundamental piece may be missing and that was feedback. In starcraft, a part of the development team plays top-rank competitive and knows about the competitive scene and how changes correlate to the flow and psychology of the game. Most of the BETA team is consisting of high-ranked CEVO and MM players, who have played on a team before, or are currently in one. We know what the changes need to be, we have talked about it for years, but it's hard to change it when you have a whole community breathing on your back, criticizing everything you do. :)

We only hope to help the developers by providing data for them to use as well as create a ideal promod that the team and I would love to play. Our plans are to balance the game, and then let VALVe see the changes in place with the community playing it and enjoying it. :D

We also don't hope to replace their data, we hope to add a new perspective and even more data to utilize towards improving this wonderful game. :)

1
the_willyEnvyUs Fan•

the Ballistic Shield to bring forward more tactics and strategies

Please tell me that this was just an illusion and that it wasn't real.

Also the community has been doing this since the game came out, I remember a lot of threads about movement speeds etc. but Valve didn't listen then why would they now? But I like the project and I'd like to support it somehow.

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Lol it may be an illusion now, that will turn into reality later. We are ambitious and confident about adding new ways for teams to strategize, we are already working on models for the long run, but if it impacts the gameflow and it proves to be too overpowering, we won't include it. Our primary goal is to make a balanced game, so if a shield proves our goal obsolete, we will have to remove it.

This being said, we are talking about implementing casual servers with the shield and let the community play around with the nostalgia of having a shield or an MP5.

I noticed the community talking about the changes that should be made, but never actually doing anything about it besides just hoping VALVe notices. We plan on actually making all those changes into a reality in our own promod which VALVe can utilize to see implementations and how they affect the balance and flow of the game.

It is not guaranteed that VALVe or Hidden Path will use some of our changes, but that won't stop us from making and continuing a product that we would personally like to see and play. We have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. :)

You can support it by either joining the team of coders, programmers, designers, and more that work on the promod, launcher and website. OR you can simply just invite your friends and play the competitive 64 tick and 128 tick servers as well as spreading the word about the mod and our ambitions.

We hope to create a website soon and release a weekly devblog dictating what we are working on, what our plans for the week have been, as well as our short term goals and ideas. :)

1
the_willyEnvyUs Fan•

I think you're just wasting resources if you're really working on the shield. Almost 12 years ago the pro's decided not to use the shield when 1.6 came out, the same thing happened with the Zeus. It's just a gimmick item that doesn't really do much in the game, but hey maybe that's just my opinion.

I really do like the idea of a promod, but since I can't code or do anything similar I could have only dreamt about it and wait till someone like you comes along :)

So I guess I will just join the group, play the mod when it comes out and theorize in the discussions.

Thank you for doing this :)

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

At the beginning our resources will be solely allocated towards balancing the game and fixing the various issues we believe need to be made. I have told the team that "Until the game is fully or at least 95% balanced, we will not be implementing any weapons or equipment into the game." I believe too that using our resources making a shield to add to a unbalanced game would be foolish, but I do love the fact of us implementing new stuff to the game, even if it is in the future long after this comment. :)

Our goal is to balance the game first, then add new stuff to improve the game to something the team and the community would love to play. :)

No problem! :D I am just trying to help make this game even greater. :) Would love for you to play the mod and talk in the discussions about your opinion. - "Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom." Francis Bacon ;)

1
fatfak•

is this still a thing?

1
AddictedProOPSupreme Master First Class•

Instead of having a different project alongside SlothSquadron's WeaponBalanceMod (which at the time he was doing secretly) I decided to become an adviser and helper for his program.

If he created something the community loved, and so did I, then imagine the results of working together? ;) <3

1